Barns matmot 2.0 : Diet, development, and food neophobia in early years. How to promote healthy diets in a kindergarten setting

Abstract

Early diet has a profound impact on a child’s development, growth, and future health. A varied diet with a high intake of vegetables is positive in several domains of health. In Norway, as in many other countries, the intake of vegetables is too low among both children and adults. An important barrier to vegetable intake in children is food neophobia. Food neophobia, meaning unwillingness to try unfamiliar foods, is a trait that is most explicit in children between two and six years of age. As this age period is important for the development of food preferences and lifelong dietary habits, understanding which factors are related to food neophobia in early age is important to know how to best improve long-term diet and lay the foundations for lifelong health. Most children eat several meals per day in kindergarten. The kindergarten setting is thus an arena with great opportunity to influence the food intake and food preferences of young children. Web-based intervention programs to promote healthy eating can be appealing, cost-effective and capable of reaching large groups of children and caregivers. Providing online resources and interactive tools also represents a promising way of providing support to kindergartens, however data on such interventions targeting diet and meals in kindergartens are scarce.